Couple cons trader of Rs 17 lakh, flees

Cops arrested 26-year-old sales executive after she fleeced employer and hatched a plan with her husband to run off to Bihar to start a business; husband untraceable

Couple cons trader of Rs 17 lakh, flees

Cops arrested 26-year-old sales executive after she fleeced employer and hatched a plan with her husband to run off to Bihar to start a business; husband untraceable

It doesn't really take after the legend of Bonnie and Clyde. But when a 26-year-old fleeces her boss of lakhs to abscond with her husband lover, allegedly in on the scheme -- leaving cops to launch a manhunt for the robber couple in their wake -- the sequence does bring to mind bits from the Bollywood potboiler Bunty Aur Babli.u00a0

Fraud: Ritika Bhagar

Cops arrested MBA Ritika Bhagat (26) from Bihar yesterday after she cheated her business associate in Goregaon East to the tune of Rs 17 lakh, apparently to start a business venture with her spouse, Deepak.

Though the Goregaon East police arrested the young business graduate 25 days after the robbery, her husband, Deepak (28), a software engineer in the city, is also a key suspect in the case. The police have launched a massive manhunt for him across the city and his native village in Bihar.

The quick con
According to Suresh Shinde, senior inspector of Goregaon East police station, Ritika had been working as a sales executive at a marble trading firm, Sophisticated Marble and Granite. "Ritika is from Kolkata. She met Deepak after she came to the city, and fell in love. She married him two years ago," Shinde said.

On March 30, when the company's owner was away, a woman named Ila Patel showed up at her office in Kama Estate in Goregaon East. She wanted to place an order of Rs 17 lakh. In the absence of her boss, Ritika took the order, as well as the cash.

But greed crept in, and Ritika quickly cooked a scheme with her husband to pocket the money. Later the same day, she told her employer that her husband had met with a serious accident and she needed to rush the hospital. The employer did not suspect anything as Ritika fled with the cash. After two days, Patel returned to find out about her order. But the company officials were clueless. They called up her cell, which was switched off. They even went to her house, a rented flat in Mira Road, but it was locked. That is when they filed a complaint.

The chaseu00a0
"We received the complaint two days after the theft as the employer did not know about the order placed by Patel," said Shinde. The police went to the Bhagat residence only to find that the couple had already made off with the money. They began tracing some text messages sent from Ritika's mobile phone and managed to locate it to the Nandiwal district of Bihar.

They went to the northern state on Monday and arrested Ritika from her husband's residence in the state. While they recovered Rs 10 lakh from her, they said that the remainder is with the husband who is allegedly on the run. "The rest of the money is with Deepak who is absconding. The couple thought they would buy themselves a house in Bihar with the money, and start a business venture as they were highly educated. We will get the woman to Mumbai on Wednesday and present her in court," added Shinde.